The White House and Democratic Leadership in the Senate has told Senator Nelson they will close every military base in Nebraska — a threat that is not credible, really — but they have also offered Senator Nelson between $300 million to $500 million in earmarks, according to key hill health care operatives. These hundreds of millions will be available for whatever he wants to spend them on in Nebraska.

Earlier, as mentioned above, there was a report that the White House and other Democrats were threatening to close Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

A Nelson aide has not only discredited the AFB threat, but has also stated the earmark bribery is an erroneous report.

As the Senate health care debate enters crunch time, the pressure from all sides continued to grow today, with Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., right in the middle.

His spokesman quickly dismissed a report by conservative columnist Michelle Malkin that Nelson was even being threatened with “closure of an air force base,” presumably Offutt Air Force Base, which is south of Omaha and home of U.S. Strategic Command. Malkin also said Nelson has been promised a “bribe bigger than Sen. Landrieu’s.”

That’s a reference to Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat and one of the last holdouts on the vote to begin the health care debate. The legislation includes a provision to increase Louisiana’s Medicaid funds that Landrieu says is worth $300 million.

I wonder who we should believe? Another politician or people legitimately concerned about the future of the country? Excuse me if I’m not ready to concede that the bribery is false, given the fact that so many politicians seem to have lost all sense of decency, integrity and any connection to the people they supposedly represent.

The media during Bush’s 8 years certainly was not afraid to pull out any statistics that would discredit Republicans or the administration. One of their favorite statistics was the number of deaths during the Iraq War.

However, now that there are wars still being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, the media has conveniently left that tiny issue to the way-side. The only individual who still has her principles is Cindy Sheehan. I may not agree with Ms. Sheehan’s politics, but I can at least commend her for her consistency. (via the Examiner):

After receiving the email, I asked Sheehan to give me a call, so I could verify that the note in fact came from her. She did, and we discussed her plans to protest next week in Martha’s Vineyard, where President Obama will be vacationing. “I think people are starting to wake up to the fact that even if they supported Obama, he doesn’t represent much change,” Sheehan said. “There are people still out here who oppose the war and Obama’spolicies, but it seems like the big organizations with the big lists aren’t here.”

I asked Sheehanabout the fact that the press seems to have lost interest in her and her cause. “It’s strange to me that you mention it,” she said. “I haven’t stopped working. I’ve been protesting every time I can, and it’s not covered. But the one time I did get a lot of coverage was when I protested in front of George Bush’s house in Dallas in June. I don’t know what to make of it. Is the press having a honeymoon with Obama? I know the Left is.”

I have more appreciation for those who stay true to their beliefs no matter what those beliefs are, rather than changing them based on whichever way the political wind is blowing, especially when your guy won the biggest office in the land.

The former president of the Canadian Medical Association was on O’Reilly last night and confirmed the same thing. Although O’Reilly, as usual, wasn’t letting him get his statements in completely, he intimated that there are not enough doctors able to cover the volume of people covered under their system. This leads to rationing of care and increased costs to attempt to fund everyone. Rationing is the only way to say you are covering everyone, and try to cut costs at the same time.

France also reported that it’s health care system is going bankrupt, nearly two weeks ago. No mention of their single-payer system and the nightmare it created for the citizens of that country by the MSM.

The English system also has horrible statistics. Their rate of survival for any cancer or serious illness is significantly worse than it is in the States. The National Center for Policy Analysisalso conducted a study and concluded the NHS was putting the patient last. If NHS was a business it would fail miserably based on its standard operating procedures and business practices that it chooses to implement.

The CBC has just released new statistics that show Americans’ life expentency is on the rise while deaths are not. But I thought American health care was ranked last? It’s amusing to hear liberals use the common argument that the US ranks 37th out of 37 countries when comparing their health care systems. However, when you ask for the context of those statistics, since stats can be masterfully manipulated based on outside factors/variables used to conduct studies, it’s no wonder that the CATO Institute was able to debunk that ranking.

Those who cite the WHO rankings typically present them as an objective measure of the relative performance of national health care systems. They are not. The WHO rankings depend crucially on a number of underlying assumptions–some of them logically incoherent, some characterized by substantial uncertainty, and some rooted in ideological beliefs and values that not everyone shares. Changes in those underlying assumptions can radically alter the rankings.

[…]while the United States ranks 37th, there is no ranking for which both claims are true. Using OP, the United States does rank 37th. But while France is number 1 on OP, Canada is 30. Using OA, the United States ranks 15th, while France and Canada rank 6th and 7th, respectively. In neither ranking is the United States at 37 while France and Canada are in the top 10.

Which ranking is preferable? WHO presents the OP ranking as its bottom line on health system performance, on the grounds that OP represents the efficiency of each country’s health system. But for reasons to be discussed below, the OP ranking is even more misleading than the OA ranking. This paper focuses mainly on the OAranking; however, the main objections apply to both OP and OA.

But, as Newsbusters reports, the media has conveniently overlooked the story regarding Canadian health care, especially when early proponents of Universal health care, like Hillary touted the system as a model the US should use.

One would think that the media would want to get all facts out to the public, and unfortunately, if some of those facts get in the way of what they idealistically felt was the answer, then so be it. The people will be better off knowing the truth and making their decisions on health care from there. It may also help certain representatives who are on the fence. It’s scary to know that the media is willing to throw the country down the toilet and inevitably bankrupt the nation in order to reach their liberal ‘Utopia.’

Sarah Palin appears more and more like a comic book heroine as the months march on. She has a common foe that is constantly attacking her from both sides of the spectrum; the Establishment. The evil establishment has been sitting, rotting in the pits of the DC beltway. Those who enter this black-hole, leave without morals, standards, common sense, or dignity. Many are mutated into something they never intended to become. Many pump their faces full of botox, insert hair plugs, lie for the sake of lying, or for the sake of money and power. These political villains ooze corruption and their struggle has been finding the kryptonite to finally do in this heroine that manages to enact change via a keyboard and a social media platform: Facebook.

The beltway pundits like Krauthammer, i.e. elitist neocons, pounce on this woman and treat her as some kind of joke. Also, take for example, the insiders at the NRSC, who wrote her off, and instead asked Newt Gingrich to speak at their event. Even though she wasn’t the headliner at the event the start of it quickly became about her, just ask the crowd inside.

The DNC attacks her as the next radical, religious zealot conservative, although she is a major proponent of the constitution and states’ rights, and does not believe in forcing her beliefs on others. The libs fear her and can’t stop talking about her even outside town hall events in Towson, Maryland.

If Sarah Palin was such a non-entity and was no threat to the establishment or the powers that be in Washington, why is she still given so much face time and why is every single statement she makes on Facebook picked apart?

It’s quite simple: This woman is the future and she is a threat. She represents what I have been wanting to see out of politics for a very long time. She is an average individual who has made it up through the ranks with only God, family, and herself to thank. She has gotten ahead by hard work and progressing one step at a time in a cut-throat political world. The founding fathers had envisioned a government that would be run by the people, for the people, and not by career politicians that treated their constituents like peasants, believing they were part of the next plutocracy/oligarchy/political dynasty. Sarah Palin is the type of person who is not beholden to the special interests, the lobbyists, the political back-scratching and corruption that is so rampant in our government. The Messiah of ‘Hope and Change,’ currently occupying the White House, can’t even compare to the standards Sarah Palin has set and what it is she exemplifies.

You may not like Sarah Palin, but you cannot say she isn’t a force to be reckoned with.

I’ll put it out there now, I am a big Sarah Palin fan, I have been since that fateful day at the end of August. I will never forget where I was and when I saw her introduced: I was actually working out at the gym, running on the treadmill of the Mandalay Bay Resort in Vegas, doing a fist bump into the air. For the first time in my female adult life I was enthused by a politician and actually believed in them. I could tell that this woman was the genuine article and respected her for that fact alone. Every blow she made to Obama during her RNC convention speech was just one more time I was jumping out of my chair clapping, and confirming that this woman is the future of politics.

I do not believe that a person must have a specific degree to be able to run a business, a school, or a country. I find liberal ivy league elitists lacking in wisdom. I don’t want to make a generalization here, but most who have graduated from a top school known for its academics, excel in knowledge, book smarts, and theory, but try applying that to the real world. What happened to real life trial and error or insight? Wisdom is not gained through books, it’s gained through life experience. Sarah Palin has experienced much in her adult life, and her career. She has had to work hard to make ends meet and even put herself through school. Let’s think for a moment about those who have been born into privilege or have had their schooling paid for, whether through family, friends or a Saudi acquaintance… Do they appreciate their education and the effort/money it took to get it? Or does the individual who had to scrimp and save to make it just another year appreciate it that much more? Does the person who had to save understand what it means to not spend beyond your means or does the silver spoon, political wanna-be?

It’s no coincidence that those who came from ivy league schools have gotten us into some of the biggest messes this country has seen. Take for example Jimmy Carter, the genius, he made things so bad they had to create a new economic term; stagflation. If you don’t see the parallels between him and the next coming of the messiah, the genius from Columbia and Harvard Law, you are fooling yourself. And what about the liberals who call Bush a dummy? Well didn’t he come from Yale? Don’t use the excuse that you need an ivy league degree to manage a country. I have seen businesses come and go and some of the most successful companies have been built from the ground up by college and high school drop-outs. Ronald Reagan was no ‘ivy leaguer’ and he turned our economy completely around. He studied economics at a small school and became a ‘B’ actor, something he was later made fun of for as well as his affinity for mac n’ cheese!

Sarah Palin’s recent statements have been concise and have hit through to the heart of the matter. She is the only member of the GOP, besides DeMint, Bachmann, and a handful of others who are true conservatives, unabashedly, unapologetic for calling a spade a spade.

At first, I too, thought death panels could just be a metaphor for what the end of life counseling and bureaucracy would become, but upon further investigation into the section, there is much to be said for the candor behind Mrs. Palin’s statement. The provision in the bill was so incredibly vague that fear and caution should have been the common sentiment among those reading the bill. Many times these convoluted bills are written in such ways that nobody can understand the legalese. The bills are passed, and only later, do representatives realize there were too many loopholes in the first place. There is a reason why that provision was taken out of the bill after Sarah Palin doubled down on her death panel statement.

Sarah Palin has continued to blast Obama and the liberal policies that are being concocted in DC. She recently made a statement regarding Obama’s off-shore drilling and oil funding hypocrisy. George Soros and Goldman Sachs have had plenty of influence on the company that Obama just gave $2B to – Petrobras. Sarah Palin made the following statement:

Why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources? That’s all Americans want; but such rational energy development has been continually thwarted by rabid environmentalists, faceless bureaucrats and a seemingly endless parade of lawsuits aimed at shutting down new energy projects.

I’ll speak for the talent I have personally witnessed on the oil fields in Alaska when I say no other country in the world has a stronger workforce than America, no other country in the world has better safety standards than America, and no other country in the world has stricter environmental standards than America. Come to Alaska to witness how oil and gas can be developed simultaneously with the preservation of our eco-system. America has the resources. We deserve the opportunity to develop our resources no less than the Brazilians. Millions of Americans know it is true: “Drill, baby, drill.” Alaska is proof you can drill and develop, and preserve nature, with its magnificent caribou herds passing by the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), completely unaffected. One has to wonder if Obamais playing politics and perhaps refusing a “win” for some states just to play to the left with our money.

[…]

Buy American is a wonderful slogan, but you can’t say in one breath that you want to strengthen our economy and stimulate it, and then in another ship our much-needed dollars to a nation desperate to drill while depriving us of the same opportunity.

Sarah Palin’s latest ‘take Obama to task’ moment occurred earlier today when she asked a question that many of us conservatives have been asking. Why no tort reform? I would think that we should fix the known problems that are smaller before tackling an entire system by overhauling it. Tort reform is another lucrative business for the lobbyists, but those on the left conveniently forget that the liberal lobbyists are just as bad as the supposed ‘conservative’ lobbyists they love to demonize. We have learned, however, that the evil insurance company lobbyists like PhRMA are actually on Obama’s dole as well. The trial lawyer’s lobby, i.e. ABA, has had significant pull on Capitol Hill for years, and you can expect that they will not be mentioned by many of the politicians because most of them are probably old law school chums.

If anybody knows about tort reform and a loser pays law, it would be Sarah Palin. She saw, this past year, how a law that was intended for the right reasons, can be used and abused by partisan ideologues. If Alaska had a loser pays law her ethics complaint issues would have been null and void.

First, we cannot have health care reform without tort reform. The two are intertwined. For example, one supposed justification for socialized medicine is the high cost of health care. As Dr. Scott Gottlieb recently noted, “If Mr. Obama is serious about lowering costs, he’ll need to reform the economic structures in medicine—especially programs like Medicare.” [1] Two examples of these “economic structures” are high malpractice insurance premiums foisted on physicians (and ultimately passed on to consumers as “high health care costs”) and the billions wasted on defensive medicine.

Dr. Stuart Weinstein, with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, recently explained the problem:

”The medical liability crisis has had many unintended consequences, most notably a decrease in access to care in a growing number of states and an increase in healthcare costs.
Access is affected as physicians move their practices to states with lower liability rates and change their practice patterns to reduce or eliminate high-risk services. When one considers that half of all neurosurgeons—as well as one third of all orthopedic surgeons, one third of all emergency physicians, and one third of all trauma surgeons—are sued each year, is it any wonder that 70 percent of emergency departments are at risk because they lack available on-call specialist coverage?” [2]

Dr. Weinstein makes good points, points completely ignored by President Obama. Dr. Weinstein details the costs that our out-of-control tort system are causing the health care industry and notes research that “found that liability reforms could reduce defensive medicine practices, leading to a 5 percent to 9 percent reduction in medical expenditures without any effect on mortality or medical complications.”

This woman is leading the charge and the debate and she hasn’t even made any major public appearances since she stepped down from being Governor of Alaska. She has simply written her opinions on her facebook page, and the political world, as well as the media, is once again, all aflutter.

You cannot tell me that this Conservative woman from Alaska is not a threat or a superstar.

Could this be the Obama administration’s Halliburton? The left attacked Dick Cheney’s ties to Halliburton and it’s no contract awards. David Axelrod’s situation with his firm AKPD appears to have similar issues regarding the current health care legislation.

Axelrod was president and sole shareholder of AKPD from 1985 until he sold his interest after Obama’s victory, government records show. The firm owes Axelrod $2 million, which it’s due to pay in installments beginning Dec. 31. Axelrod’s son, Michael, still works there. He didn’t return a phone call. The firm’s Web site continues to feature David Axelrod’s work on the Obama campaign.

While Hugh Hewitt followed up with further investigation into the matter:

IfAxelrod has been negotiating any part of any deal involving any of these players which are funneling money to the firm that owes him money, or if he is advising the president on the deals with any of these groups, that’s a conflict of interest. Laundering the money through a “coalition” doesn’t remove the conflict much less the appearance of impropriety. The coalition is in effect partially funding David Axelrod’s severance package though its members might have done so unknowingly. These forthcoming payments to Axelrod are much more significant than the sort of “retained ties” that Democrats blasted Dick Cheney for vis-a-vis Halliburton even though there was no high level negotiations between the vice president and his former company.

President Barak Obama’s push for a national health care overhaul is providing a financial windfall in the election offseason to Democratic consulting firms that are closely connected to the president and two top advisers.

Coalitions of interest groups running at least $24 million in pro-overhaul ads hired GMMB, which worked for Obama’s 2008 campaign and whose partners include a top Obamacampaign strategist. They also hired AKPD Message and Media, which was founded by David Axelrod, a top adviser to Obama’s campaign and now to the White House. AKPD did work for Obama’s campaign, and Axelrod’s son Michael and Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe work there.

[…]

“We are deeply honored to have been part of Barack Obama’s historic campaign to change America and the world,” GMMB says on its Web site. GMMB’s partners include Jim Margolis, a senior strategist for Obama’s presidential campaign.

Both GMMB and AKPD also have worked for Democrats this year. The Democratic National Committee paid AKPD at least $106,000 for polling, media production, communication consulting and travel costs from February through April. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee paid GMMB roughly $75,000 from February through June for ads. And GMMB took in at least $9,000 this year from Senate leader Reid’s political action committee for communications consulting.

This hypocrisy goes hand-in-hand with Obama’s latest back-door deal with the health care industry/PhRMA. His deal was eerily similar to Bush’s drug deal which had the left screaming. Weeks after this deal was made, those on the far left and the more progressive end of the spectrum finally admitted the story was true. In fact the story was aired on Air America today of all places!

Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be new to Obama or any of his Chicago cronies, who act more like the mob than they do petty theft politicians. After reading Michelle Malkin’s “Culture of Corruption,” I am still learning much more than I ever imagined based on their pay-to-play politics as usual, rampant double standards, lies, and fraud. It’s as simple and basic as checking Michelle Obama’s progression through the ranks of her career as Obama moved up in state and eventually US politics.

To make matters worse, House Democrats have decided to conduct a witch hunt against specific health insurance companies. I do not believe that our constitution allows for witch hunts or going after a specific/select group. This is a discriminatory attack to silence dissent and to get their way on health care when the session begins in September.

Letters sent to 52 insurance companies by Democratic leaders demand extensive documents for an examination of ‘extensive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry.” The letters set a deadline of Sept. 14 for the documents.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, signed the three-page letter dated Monday.

An industry source replied when asked for comment: “This is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded fishing expedition designed to silence health plans.”

How is this legal? Should I assume that because the House passed the cap on executive pay, which is an unconstitutional piece of legislation, although I do agree that some executive compensation is in fact superfluous and harmful, that they can nows conduct searches/investigations on any individual, any community, any genre of business? I have an idea! If we are going to go after harmful business entities, why not conduct a witch hunt against Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, AIG, Citibank, Bank of America, Country Wide, Fannie & Freddie, GE, CLN, The unions, and the Federal Reserve. Hell would freeze over for that to happen while the Democrats maintain a super majority, especially when Wall Streets gives almost 3x as much to Democrats as it does to Republicans.

This all sounds eerily fascist, I hate to say that, but this is much worse than the Patriot Act folks – this is appalling.

We have another case of “I’m not a doctor, but I play one at town halls.”

Sheila Leavitt appeared at Barney Frank’s town hall yesterday, where the Associated Press article this morning claimed she was a physician. However, upon further investigation after the town hall had ended, a man who attended the event, looked into the Massachusetts database of doctors to find out whether or not this woman was in fact listed. Lo and behold, there was no trace of either a Sheila Levitt or Leavitt as a practicing physician in the state.

I’m tired of hearing about fake concern at town halls when average Americans attend after work or take a day off to be inside a forum to voice their opinions and concerns. None of the people I have met at any of the tea parties or town halls are paid, coerced, or bused to the event. Is it so hard to believe that the real astroturf may come from the left more so than the right? Which would explain why so many on the left believe this to be a fake movement.

During the town hall, Leavitt stated that she hoped reform would create a more even playing field regarding pay for primary care physicians as opposed to specialists who make more money. The Associated Press picked up on this story and the fact that this woman also harped on those opposed to ObamaCare as using the “same talking points.” I find it ironic because this woman sounds very similar to the ‘faux’ doctor at Sheila Jackson-Lee’s town hall, Roxana. The Associated Press claimed this woman was a doctor from Newton, MA, but there is no record of her, and according to a freeper who also conducted an investigation of their own, via the AMA website/database, she does not exist.

The only references to Sheila Leavitt as a medical doctor I can find on Google (besides references to last night’s town hall) are self-references; where she identifies herself that way. I could find no listing for a medical office belonging to Sheila Leavitt. Physicians generally have offices where they practice medicine.

This woman may not have personally claimed she was a doctor, but even so, this says more about the movement on the left and the real meaning of astroturf, as well as, the media lapdogs that so willingly follow Obama over a liberal cliff like little lemmings.

Alan Grayson held a town hall yesterday evening last minute in Orlando, FL. He held his town hall at a union headquarters, which I believe violates House Rule 24 which stipulates that town halls must be held at public venues for public debates. Although some of our taxpayer money may be heading to unions under the table – I still believe they are supposed to be private “technically.”

Many who attended his town hall yesterday felt that the venue was unfair and union supporters were sent in as typical astroturf for liberals.

The hastily-called meeting was held in a relatively small union hall which limited attendance to about 120 or so members of the public. But it was held just after a regular meeting of local Democrats, some of whom stayed behind for the town hall in the scarce seats.

Outside the union hall, a frustrated crowd of hundreds of people who could not get into the hall waved signs and chanted simultaneously for and against health care.

There were so many different chants that they were unintelligible. At one point, Andy Showen, 49, of Orlando, angry he couldn’t get in, pulled on a side door until police officers stopped him…

This meeting was a joke. PRECEDED by an Orange County Democratic Party meeting. Easily 750 people outside. Grayson hides behind his 3 kids. He’s a sick Democrat.

I was at the meeting. I got there at 6:15 and I was number 70 in line. When they closed the doors, there were about 40 in front of me who didn’t get in. So a good estimate of how many they let in is 30. They said the place held 130 so they preloaded the room with 100 and let 30 regular citizens in, which is somewhere between 5% and 10% of the people who showed up.I asked one of Grayson’s reps at the door why they didn’t get a bigger place. She had two reasons. 1. They couldn’t find a bigger place on such short notice (which begs the question, “then why didn’t you give some notice?), and 2. She said that it was free and they didn’t spend any taxpayer money.

She also told me that lots of events have to turn people away. She was smug and patronizing. After the recent history of Democrats having “town hall meetings” packed with their own supporters, doing the very same thing again here shows an amazing arrogance.

You are not going to believe this, but Grayson brought three of his children to the event! The children were in the 8-12 yr old range, and he asked that we be respectful in light of this. He did state that he will support the bill in it’s present stage, repeatedly stated that 18,000 people die each year due to no health insurance, that this was the right thing to do, was morally responsible and that he could not sleep at night knowing that he did nothing about this.

Wait!? So let me get this straight… Grayson stacks his town hall with supporters/astroturfers, but those opposing ObamaCare are fake and don’t represent America. We had a Democrat who held a town hall at a Children’s Hospital, we had an 11-yr-old girl of an Obama supporter exploited at his New Hampshire town hall, and now Alan Grayson uses his children as a shield in order to make the crowd ‘respectful?’

I can think of other countries further ‘East’ that also like to use children as shields…

In a health care town hall yesterday, held by Spencer Bachus of Alabama, seniors made up the majority of the audience. This has appeared to be the norm in many other forums taking place during August’s recess as Congress tries to build support and momentum for a government health care option and health care/insurance reform.

Nepomuceno says he feels like older people will lose control of their health care options under Obama’s plan. He was sitting with Barbara Jones, 64, of The Narrows. She said she too was concerned about how senior citizens would be treated. “We’re losing our values,” Jones said.

Knight said she agreed with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s position about the likelihood of government “death panels.”

“The government should never put itself in the position of assisting people in the decision to die,” Knight said. “It undermines our relationship with our government.”

Seniors are the most concerned demographic regarding the health care debate, and it’s no wonder when they make up the largest portion of those who require insurance/medicaid/surgeries & pharmaceuticals. As we age, our health deteriorates, and as our health deteriorates we spend more money on attempting to maintain that health, or at least improve it a little for a better quality of life.

A government takeover could become a nightmare for people like my grandmother whose kitchen table is her medicine cabinet. She struggles with osteoporosis, arthritis, 2 replacement hips, and immobility. She is on multiple drugs and requires home assistance 4 times per week. She refuses a hand out, or any type of help that would keep her in an institution and out of her own home. Nobody is sure of what exactly is written in the health care bill, and rightfully so, people are scared. The cliche “it’s better to be safe than sorry,” is a cliche for a reason. Seniors have the most to lose if somehow the truth does come out that government health care would be rationed and in order to cut costs, those that are the most expensive to keep alive would be let go first. There’s no fear-mongering when mentioning rationing. Why shouldn’t we believe that a government controlled system wouldn’t end up utilizing rationing to offset astronomical costs when this is already done in other countries that have a public health care system?

Seniors have become so distraught and angered over a bill that is being rushed without any representatives reading it thoroughly that many have dropped their AARP memberships. The Obama administration announced that the AARP, a supposed non-partisan group for seniors, had endorsed his health care reform initiative. They back-tracked when there was citizen outrage at the AARP endorsing a partisan piece of legislation. The Obama administration is now stating that the AARP does not endorse the health care bill but they support his initiatives. There really isn’t much difference in either statement, and due to AARP’s partnership with the unions, like SEIU, or AARP’s CEO who contributed 8.9K to Obama’s election campaign, it goes without saying that the AARP is in fact partisan and it is in fact in bed with the left/Obama’s administration.

CBS News has learned that up to 60,000 people have cancelled their AARP memberships since July 1, angered over the group’s position on health care.

Elaine Guardiani has been with AARP for 14 years, and said, “I’m extremely disappointed in AARP.”

Retired nurse Dale Anderson has 12 years with AARP and said, “I don’t wanna be connected with AARP.”

Many are switching to the American Seniors Association, a group that calls itself the conservative alternative.

Can you honestly blame them? Especially after this town hall in early August where those representing AARP were some of the rudest, excluding Congress, individuals I have seen at a public forum in quite a while?

I’m glad that seniors are taking a stand, voicing their opinions, and making their contributions, or lack thereof, felt far and wide. Americans of all shapes and sizes, colors and creeds, genders and ages, are voicing their opinions in whatever way they can, whether for or against health care, and this is the essence of the philosophy behind democracy and why our founders envisioned a Republic. I have always been proud to be an American but even more so since the tea party movement began!